If you can’t turn off iPhone Text Message Forwarding for Mac or iPad

Find out why you may not see the option to turn off Text Message Forwarding for a Mac or iPad on your iPhone, and how to fix this issue.

For context, the Text Message Forwarding feature allows you to send and receive iPhone texts on your iPad or Mac. In addition to the obvious benefit of communicating from the big screen, Text Message Forwarding can also help autofill OTPs in Safari.

You can set it up in iOS Settings > Apps > Messages > Text Message Forwarding. From this same screen, you can also turn off the switches next to a specific Mac or iPad where you don’t want your iPhone texts to be forwarded.

But if you notice that there is no turn-on or turn-off switch next to a device name, and just an untappable, unchangeable ‘On’ status, then this is because you have set up iCloud Messages on that device.

iCloud Messages backs up all your iPhone texts to iCloud for safekeeping and also makes them available in the Messages app on macOS and iPadOS for a uniform texting experience. If you have set up iCloud Messages on a Mac or iPad, then you won’t see an option to disable Text Message Forwarding for that device in your iPhone settings (see the screenshot above).

To fix that, turn off iCloud Messages, and then you will be able to disable Text Message Forwarding for that machine.

Fix: Unable to turn off Text Messages Forwarding on Mac or iPad

It involves three easy steps.

Step 1: Disable iCloud Messages on Mac or iPad

• Go to System Settings > Apple Account > iCloud > Messages and turn off ‘Use on this Mac.’ Confirm by clicking ‘Disable This Device.’

• Now open the Messages app on your Mac and press the Command + , (comma) keys to access its Settings. Then, go to the iMessage tab and make sure ‘Enable Messages in iCloud’ is unchecked. If it’s checked, uncheck it and confirm by clicking ‘Disable This Device.’

For iPad, go to iPadOS Settings > Apple Account > iCloud > Messages and turn off Use on this iPad.

Step 2: Wait a few minutes

After turning off Messages in iCloud, give it a couple of minutes for the changes to propagate. Make sure all devices are connected to the Internet, preferably via Wi-Fi.

Step 3: Turn off Text Message Forwarding

With Messages in iCloud no longer active on your Mac or iPad, follow these steps to ensure Text Message Forwarding is disabled.

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Tap Apps at the bottom.
3. Select Messages from the list of applications.
4. Tap Text Message Forwarding.
5. The switch next to that Mac or iPad should be off now. But if it isn’t, you can turn it off manually.

This is how you can fix the issue of the missing switch next to a Mac or iPad in your iPhone Text Message Forwarding settings.

Also, check out:

• Fix iPhone messages not forwarding to Mac
• How to sync all your iPhone messages to Mac